Jason Phu

b.1989, Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia and Sydney, Australia

Jason Phu’s multi-disciplinary practice brings together a wide range of, sometimes contradictory, references from traditional ink paintings and calligraphy to mass-produced objects, everyday vernacular to official records, personal narratives to historical events. Working across drawing, installation, painting and performance, the artist frequently uses humour as a device to explore experiences of cultural dislocation.

Phu studied at COFA, Sydney graduating with honours in 2011 and also studied at NSCAD, Nova Scotia. Phu’s work has been informed by several China-based residencies at CAFA, Beijing; DAC Studios, Chongqing; and Organhaus, Chongqing. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Australia including Westspace, Melbourne; CCAS Gorman Arts Centre, Canberra; and ALASKA Projects, Sydney; ACE Open, Adelaide. Last year (2018) he showed in the Dobell Drawing Biennale at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Burrangong Affray at the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and Primavera 2018 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. In 2021 Phu was the recipient of the $80,000 Mordant Family Moving Image Award (AMCI). Phu is currently presenting work in a group show titled ‘The Way We Eat’ at The Art Gallery of New South Wales. This year he has been selected for a major mural commission at the ACE Hotel in Melbourne.

Phu is represented by Chalk Horse, Sydney and Station Gallery, Melbourne

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Artworks

“it took us so long to get here, and now there’s no way back, we could break the glass, but we would be shattering our vows.”

“shutup you idiot, we’re a ghost. we haunt this park, dont ever picnic here again or ill take your phone and wallet and sandwiches”

“be as strong as a mountain and as fluid as a river they said. they were wrong, the mountain was a mound of old tv monitors and the river was a dry bed of ox bones”

“in a time before, i was made of stone, and was the toughest thing around. now they have diamonds and steel and metals mined from asteroids. diggers and dynamite carve through me like a seatbelt on a summers day on naked salty skin.”

“im gonna smash your head in with this hammer and my big muscles that this magical forest gifted me”

“love is hard enough without all the distractions, the sand, the desert lizards, the bodily fluids and the feeling like someone is watching you, you will never find love.”

“we don’t eat little children but we do feast like medieval kings in dusty old oil paintings”

“how did you find this place, it doesn’t even exist within a dimensional plane, it is beyond your understanding, it is more than you can handle, it is outside the range of emotions you could ever conjure.”

“where is my home but here? i am a cat that has forgotten how agile it is, caught in an alleyway between two cars playing chicken.”

“if you ever see us in your reflection it means you won’t get a good nights rest. we snore and burp and fart and walk and talk in our sleep, but most of all we cry because none of this is real and these aren’t our beds and we just want to go home”

“i recently took some recorder lessons so i could be more popular at parties, the ancient bamboo flute i usually play summoned the ghost of christmas past, a real party pooper.”

“imagine being the eight dragon kings of all the seas with all the power of the forces of nature and mystical powers of everlasting life and wisdom of the ages and still drowning in your own soup of feelings and left-on-read messages.”

"i came here to eat your tiny skull"

“i had a nap and had a nightmare. when i woke up i was still hungry.”

“the lake dried up and all the Fish died”

“people who are drunk say stupid things that sound like stupid things”

“give me 30 years to learn some stuff ”

“i walked 10,000 k’s to find you, the roses i brought are wilted, the dried out stems, i wear as a coat”

“in the end even the worms don’t win, the owls pluck them out during the midnight summer rains.”

“i forgot everything i learnt in highschool”

"woah, that was a really big meal"

Love your guts

“a long time ago i used to live in a cave on a mountain. one day a deer walked past my cave, i had never seen a deer on the mountain before. i followed the deer down the mountain, the deer led me to a stream. from then on i lived next to the stream.”